Implementing Green Engineering Principles: Water reuse and pinch technology

Background
Water is used extensively in industrial processes. It is used for cleaning, as a heat transfer fluid
(as both cooling water and steam) and as an extracting agent in unit operations such as adsorbers
and strippers. Fresh water suitable for industrial uses is becoming an increasingly expensive
commodity, and the costs of cleaning industrial process waters to a level suitable for release is
also increasing. Shown in Table 1 is a summary of water costs in a number of countries.

Table 1. Typical costs of water supply and treatment in Organization

for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries (Wenzel, et al., 2002)

The amount of water used in manufacturing varies significantly from industry to industry and
process to process. In chemical manufacturing, total process and cooling water use of 0.5-5
gallons (0.002-0.02 m3) per pound of product produced are fairly typical (see report on
sustainability metrics in the chemicals industry at http://www.bridgestos.org/). At a cost of $1-3
per m3 and with use rates of order 0.01 m3 per pound of product, the costs of water is becoming a
significant factor in commodity material manufacturing. As water supply and treatment costs
increase, there will be increasing pressure in the chemical process industries to reduce water
consumption.

This case study will examine systematic procedures for reducing water use. The basic premise
of the approach is that significant opportunities for water reuse exist within industrial processes,
as shown in Figure 1.

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Figure 1. Conceptual models for water reuse networks (Bagajewicz, 2000)

Traditional water use patterns are shown conceptually in Figure 1a, where a single source of
fresh water is used to supply a variety of processes, P. Once used, the process waters are mixed
and sent to a series of treatment operations, T, before discharge. One inefficiency associated
with traditional use and treatment schemes comes from not exploiting water reuse opportunities.
The effluent from some process water uses can be used as the feed material for other process
uses (for example the some process water effluents from petroleum refineries could be used in
crude oil desalting; contaminated ultrapure water used in semiconductor manufacturing might be
used as a feed to less demanding applications). Figure 1b illustrates the concept of direct process
water reuse.

Another inefficiency in traditional approaches to water use and treatment is associated with the
use of a single series of treatment operations for all used process waters. Since not process water
effluents are contaminated to the same degree, they do not all require the same level of treatment.
For example, a process effluent with high levels of dissolved solids and low levels of suspended
solids may not require the same treatment processes required by a process effluent with high
suspended solids but no dissolved solids. Combining these streams before treatment, as shown
in Figures 1a and 1b would lead to higher flows in the treatment processes than if the streams
were treated separately. Figure 1c illustrates the concept of using series and parallel treatment
processes, rather than just series processes.

Finally, having all process uses occur before any treatment can lead to inefficiencies. Stated in
another way, process use done in series with treatment is not as efficient as integrated use and
treatment. Figure 1d illustrates the concept of using series and parallel process use and
treatment, rather than just treatment in series with use.

These concepts of water reuse can be identified using a set of systematic tools; the procedure is
often referred to as a pinch analysis.

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Implementation
Pinch analyses has been used in a variety of water reuse applications. Dunn and El-Halwagi
(2003) have provided the following summary.

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References

Bagajewicz, M. A review of recent design procedures for water networks in

refineries and process plants Computers and Chemical Engineering 24 (2000) 20932113.

Dunn, R.F. and M. El-Halwagi Process integration technology review: background and
applications in the chemical process industry J Chem Technol Biotechnol 78:10111021 (online:
2003) DOI: 10.1002/jctb.738

Wenzel, H., R.F. Dunn, L.Gottrup, and J. Kringelum, Process integration design methods for
water conservation and wastewater reduction in industry. Part 3: Experience of industrial
application, Clean Techn Environ Policy 4 (2002) 1625
DOI 10.1007/s10098-002-0146-y.